Another Racer?
by The Not-So-Ultimate Writer
Summary: Set three weeks after Oreanna Sprinkletop. Things were changing in Sugar Rush. Turbo still on the loose, Vanellope trapped in Sugar Rush and to top it off, a boy with mysterious origins appeared. What'll happen when he's invited to be a racer? Read to find out.
1. Trapped Again

**Hey, the sequel to Oreanna Sprinkletop is finally up. I'm still considering changing the title. Read and review.**

Trapped Again

Vanellope raced down the track. She had just made it to Cake Mountain and was doing her best to stay ahead. She had just reached a row of power up boxes and grabbed one quickly. Before passing them completely, she moved to the right to break another one to keep anyone else from getting it. She looked at her power up icon and found that she had a cherry bomb. Glancing to her left, she saw Oreanna who also got a cherry bomb. The two lined up their karts and placed the bombs side by side. Taffyta, Rancis, and Candlehead came by and Taffyta and Rancis ran into the bombs while Candlehead sped by with her sweet seeker gun, which she had been saving for a while, and aimed it at the pair in front. She shot two sweet seekers from the gun. One hit Oreanna but the other hit the wall of Cake Mountain. Deciding to save the last shot for a better angle, Candlehead followed Vanellope.

Oreanna, almost knocked off course, tried to regain her speed. She caught up as much as she could to Candlehead who was just getting to the rainbow road. She still couldn't get a clear shot because Vanellope was too far.

Oreanna steadily caught up to Candlehead, who had a shot on Vanellope during the final stretch of road. Before Candlehead could shoot, Oreanna had caught up and pushed Candlehead's kart a bit. Candlehead couldn't get her shot with Oreanna pushing her, and Vanellope was just a mile from the finish line. Suddenly, a scoop of ice cream hit Oreanna, keeping her from blocking Candlehead's shot. Candlehead looked back and saw Gloyd. Candlehead took her shot just before Vanellope could reach the finish line. Candlehead passed by her and won the race in first, followed by Gloyd, then Vanellope, then Oreanna. Candlehead cheered to celebrate her winning. Gloyd pulled up next to her.

"Good job, Candlehead." he said.

"Thanks, Gloyd. I couldn't have won without you." Candlehead admitted. Gloyd smiled. He reached out his hand in a high five and Candlehead returned it. Vanellope, even in third place, smiled and cheered for her friends.

"You are always so happy after a race." Oreanna commented, also smiling.

"We're still on the roster." Vanellope said. "I'm good with that."

"We can never get you two off the roster." Taffyta said, pulling up in her kart. "You two always team up against the rest of us." Jubileena pulled up next, followed by Rancis.

"There's no rule against teaming up with fellow racers." Vanellope pointed out. By this time, the rest of the racers pulled up. "Taffyta, Rancis, and Candlehead do it all the time."

"Hey we're not saying it's against the rules." Crumbelina said. "It's just that when you group up into teams, it makes it hard for the rest of us to get into the roster." The other racers nodded in agreement.

"Not our fault." Oreanna said. She looked at Vanellope. "But I guess we do team up a lot. Not bad to stay on the roster but how are we supposed to know when I'm better than you?"

"Easy. Never." Vanellope said and smirked. "I'm always the best."

"No, I'm the best." Taffyta interjected. Vanellope and Oreanna looked at her, then at each other, and laughed. Some of the other racers did too but a glare from Taffyta and they were silenced.

"Fine. Tomorrow, I propose no teaming up with other racers." Vanellope said. "That way we can measure which of us are the best."

"I can do that. And I'll win." Oreanna said.

"No." Taffyta said, grinning. "I'll win."

"Okay, you two can keep dreaming." Vanellope said. "Here are the rules. No teaming up or treating anyone special. To you, every car is driven by the same person. Other than that, standard rules." The other racers nodded in agreement.

"So that settles it." Taffyta said.

"Tomorrow we decide who's the best." Oreanna said. "For now, who's up for root beer at Tapper's?" Immediately, every hand went up with the exception of Gloyd's. "Orangeboar, you coming?"

"Nah, my kart took some damage during the race." Gloyd said. "I'm gonna go fix it first. If there's still time before opening, then I'll meet up with you guys." With that, he put his kart in drive and drove slowly into town.

The rest of the racers drove as fast as they could to the exit of the game. Taffyta was ahead of the crowd with Oreanna following her. Then there was Adorabeezle and Rancis following and Vanellope after them. They reached the rainbow bridge and the racers went through one by one. Vanellope was next but as she was about to drive through she saw a familiar blue force field.

Without wasting a second, Vanellope hit the brakes as hard as she could, but it was too late. Although her kart could go through, she couldn't. When her kart went through the force field, she was squished back between the seat and the blue force field, only surviving since she was part of the game. She screamed in agony as her body was compressed between the speed and weight of her kart and the unbreakable blue wall. The drivers behind her either drove around her or stopped.

"Vanellope, are you okay?" a very concerned Jubileena asked. Vanellope glitched out of her kart and almost collapsed in pain but after a second, it didn't hurt as much and she could easily stand up. She was about to answer but her kart started rolling backwards past all the other karts and off the side of the bridge. It fell several meters and when it hit the ground it was totaled. The whole exterior was split open down the middle, showing off the thankfully intact engine and other important parts. One of the back wheels were broken off and was rolling away. The pedals were all broken off and the shift was bent over.

"I was until that happened." Vanellope said. "That's gonna take forever to fix." Her attention shifted back over to the exit. Limping over, she touched the blue force field holding her back. "There goes Tapper's. I'm trapped in the game again."

"Don't worry." Candlehead said. "Oreanna'll just turn it off again like last time." Last month, Oreanna had come back to life and gained powers of a ghost. She could pass through solid objects, possess other people, even fly. She had possessed the Surge Protector to turn off the glitch shield so that Vanellope could go to Felix and Calhoun's wedding.

"No, I don't wanna risk her getting into trouble." Vanellope said. "If she tries to do it, tell her not to."

"You know we can't stop her." Minty said.

"But I hope she'll just listen to my request." Vanellope said. Then she added with a little hesitation. "Besides, what am I missing? I got a root beer pool in my castle."

"Okay, see ya later." Swizzle said. The racers still there jumped in their karts and said good bye to Vanellope as they left. After they were all gone, Vanellope's happy expression had dropped. She was indefinitely sad at not being allowed to leave anymore.

Trying to get over it, she decided to fix up her kart before opening. Glitching down to where her kart is, she grabbed all of the important parts that fell off the kart and put it in the driver's seat. She started pushing it back into town, the missing wheel not making it any easier.

After a few minutes of pushing, Gloyd passed by. "Woo-hoo!" he shouted. He had more time than he expected to after fixing up his kart so he took it for a joyride. When he passed Vanellope, he stopped. "What happened to your kart?"

"Glitch shield is back up." Vanellope said. She then described in detail what happened while still pushing the kart. "So I'm stuck in Sugar Rush all over again." She stopped pushing and turned to Gloyd. "Hey, I'm on the roster today as you know. Could you go get Ralph and Felix? I don't think I could fix this without them in time for opening."

"Sure thing. Stay right here and I'll be right back." Gloyd drove off to the exit to find Ralph and Felix. Vanellope sighed and opened up the engine compartment to check for all the damage. The damage wasn't as bad as it looked from the outside. It was still drivable but Vanellope didn't want to risk it. Instead she left the hood open and waited for Gloyd to get back with Ralph and Felix.

After about ten minutes, the three finally pulled up next to the broken Candy Kart. Gloyd left quickly and went to join the others at Tapper's.

"What happened here?" Ralph asked as Felix immediately got to work on the kart.

"The glitch shield is back up." Vanellope answered. "My kart passed through but I smashed right into it. Then I got out of the kart but forgot to put on the parking brake. It rolled off the side of the rainbow bridge." Felix finished fixing the Candy Kart.

"All done." Felix said. "Why don't you take it for a spin?" Vanellope jumped into her kart and started the engine. She pushed the accelerator gently and drove a few laps around a group of candy cane trees. She pushed the accelerator harder and drove faster. She continued this until she hit full speed.

"Alright!" Vanellope yelled. "The Candy Kart's revived. Taffyta and Oreanna are going down tomorrow." She pulled up next to Ralph and Felix. "I'll see you guys some other time. Now that I'm trapped in the game again, I might as well do some practice laps around Sugar Rush."

"Are you sure you don't want some company?" Ralph asked.

"Right now, I'm just going to try and beat my best time." Vanellope said. "I'm not going to stop at all. Not to talk, not to rest, I'm just going to beat my best time and that's it.

Ralph and Felix nodded and left. They had been hesitant to leave when Vanellope had gone through such a disaster but they could tell that Vanellope wanted to be by herself. Vanellope revved up her engine, feeling saddened again. She hit the accelerator as fast as she could toward Cakeway and raced laps around it, keeping track of her time, until the arcade opened.


	2. Best Bet

Best Bet

The day went on smoothly. Vanellope was picked by the gamers countless times and won races many more times without even glitching during most of the races. When the arcade closed, the racers gathered at the starting line.

"You all remember the rules we discussed last night." Vanellope said. "But just to keep it interesting, how about we add something else?"

"Like what?" Taffyta questioned.

"I'm going to bet my rare nougat that I've been saving for a special occasion." Vanellope offered. "What do you guys got?"

"I have Tamasaburo." Oreanna said.

"I have imported sugar cuban lollipops." Taffyta said. She pulled out a box from her pocket and opened it. Inside were a dozen red lollipops. She pulled one out and put it in. Everyone looked at her. "These aren't them. I just haven't had one in a while."

"You've gotta lay off those." Rancis commented. "You're addicted and it's not healthy."

"Hey, I'm not addicted. I can stop any time I want." Taffyta snapped. Everyone shrugged it off and continued.

"I have two cases of rocky road ice cream." Candlehead said.

"Not valuable enough." Vanellope said.

"How about a case of chocolate malted crunch ice cream?" Candlehead asked. The others looked at each other and nodded, saying that it would do. Candlehead smiled.

"Anyone else in?" Oreanna asked no one in particular.

"I have mini flavorized sweet seeker pellets." Jubileena said. She pulled out a bag of glowing red-orange candies that resembled real sweet seekers. (someone correct me on the color of sweet seekers if I'm wrong) "All the destructive power of a sweet seekers turned into flavor." After everyone took a good look at the bag, they stared at Gloyd.

"What?" he asked.

"Gloyd, if there are two people in this kingdom we expect to have rare candy, it's you and Swizzle." Taffyta said. It was true. Gloyd made big risks to get candy that you couldn't find even in Sugar Rush. Swizzle had a whole collection of candy that didn't regenerate.

"I haven't gotten anything recently. I try to lay low." Gloyd said, taking off his hat with his left hand. His right foot lifted off the ground for a second then it was back on the ground. "But I do have a bag of Rare Candies." He pulled a bag of two hundred individually wrapped sweets out of his hat and put it back on his head.

"What kind?" Rancis asked.

"Rare Candies from Pokemon." Gloyd answered. Immediately every Sugar Rusher's eyes widened. Everyone did a quick glance around to make sure no one was listening.

"Those are impossible to get." Vanellope said. "Each one is worth Swizzle's whole collection of rare sweets." Contrary to popular belief, Rare Candies weren't for Pokemon. They only ate it to get stronger. Each one was rumored to have so much flavor that it would kill the consumer.

"Which is why I am only betting ten of them." Gloyd said. "When I find an occasion worth celebrating with these, I'm CELEBRATING."

"How did you even get those?" Adorabeezle asked.

"I am not at liberty to divulge that information." Gloyd said. Vanellope was about to question further but Gloyd stopped her. "I pleed the fifth!"

"What?" Jubileena asked.

"Nothing. I'm just not answering." Gloyd said. He turned to all the other racers. "Anyone else joining in?" Swizzle stepped up.

"I'm not missing out on a chance to obtain those." he said. "I'll bet ten cannoli."

"I thought you couldn't find those in Sugar Rush." Oreanna said.

"They only regenerate a year after they've been eaten." Swizzle said. "I have all ten of the available ones."

"Is that everyone?" Vanellope asked. "Remember, if you don't bet anything, then you don't win anything, even if you're the first to cross." No one moved. "I guess that's it. The race still costs one gold coin." She took out a gold coin and threw it onto the platform which threw it into the trophy on top of the finish line. She heard cheers from the crowd of candy citizens. One by one, the other racers put their coins in and got similar reactions. After everyone put their coins in, they lined up at the starting line.

"Your candy's mine, Gloyd!" Taffyta said, finishing her red lollipop and flicking it away. He looked at her and laughed.

"You really think so, Taffyta?" Gloyd asked sarcastically. She nodded with a confident look. "I'll get rid of some extra weight then." He took off his hat and threw it up and to the side of the road. "That should do it."

"How's that gonna help?" Taffyta said. "Getting rid of your hat won't do any-" She was interrupted by a loud crash. She looked toward the direction of the sound and saw Gloyd's hat in a huge crater on the ground.

"That hat weighs as much as my kart, if not more." Gloyd said. Taffyta had a look of pure shock on and Gloyd found it priceless.

"How can you lift that thing?" she asked, completely unbelieving what she just saw. Gloyd shrugged and said he didn't know. The shock that was evident in her face was replaced with determination. "I'm still gonna win!"

(3...2...1...GO!)

Gloyd, having the most speed regularly, coupled with the loss of his extremely heavy hat, immediately shot ahead of everyone else. Oreanna was next, almost a full mile behind Gloyd, Vanellope was quickly gaining on her.

"There's no way we can beat Gloyd, he's too fast!" Oreanna said.

"Yes, he's too fast." Vanellope said. "He's going to need really good reactions to turn that kart when he needs to." Vanellope stated. They came upon a row of power up boxes and received Sweet Seekers. She turned the gun and shot Oreanna. Oreanna spun around and came to a full stop. Vanellope looked in her rear view mirror and noticed Taffyta catching up. Vanellope turned her gun again and aimed it at the pink clad racer. The second shot was fired and Taffyta was also sent spinning away.

Vanellope didn't fire the last one yet. Instead, she tried her best to catch up as much as she could. She approached the gumball valley and saw Gloyd narrowly avoiding a gumball and then getting hot by another. He regenerated a second later and tried to regain his speed. Vanellope passed him and avoided giant gumballs the rest of the way out of the canyon and continued to Cake Mountain.

Jubileena approached Vanellope with a recently acquired ice cream cannon. Gloyd had regained his speed once he left the gumball valley and was quickly getting ahead, cruising by Jubileena and overtaking Vanellope. Vanellope aimed her last sweet seeker at Gloyd. Jubileena aimed her ice cream cannon at Vanellope and fired. Vanellope, noticing the glob of ice cream coming straight for her, repositioned the sweet seeker gun and shot it at the ice cream projectile. The sweet seeker hit the ice cream, which had stopped in midair and fell on Jubileena, and passed through the glob. It changed course and hit the next racer which was Rancis.

Vanellope had just made it to Cake Mountain and did her best to catch up to Gloyd, who had trouble turning. He was almost at the top when Vanellope approached. He was turning when Vanellope had come up alongside him and pushed him off the edge of the road, causing him to fall half way down the mountain. Oreanna approached from behind. Vanellope looked at her.

"Maybe that was a little over the top." she admitted. "Remind me to apologize for that later." Oreanna nodded and then the two hit a row of power up boxes. Oreanna gained a cherry bomb and Vanellope gained sugar rush. Vanellope used her upgrade as soon as they reached the tunnel at the top of the cake. Oreanna couldn't catch up so she used her cherry bomb at the tunnel entrance. Once they made it out of the tunnel and drove off the ramp, they landed on the next portion of road, Vanellope a little farther ahead.

Suddenly, Vanellope and Oreanna were both hit by sweet seekers. They looked up and saw Candlehead driving by them. She looked back and shot one last sweet seeker at Gloyd who was catching up, again. Vanellope drove slightly faster to get a power up box and got sticky syrup. She turned her kart in front of Gloyd and used the power up so that he was stuck. Oreanna passed him and the siblings drove miles ahead of him.

Eventually, he shook himself loose after Taffyta, Rancis, Jubileena, and Minty Zaki had all passed him. He was about to drive as fast as he could when he was hit by a sweet seeker from Adorabeezle and then the rest of the racers passed him. Frustrated, he accelerated to his top speed and made his way up to fourth place right after getting out of the rainbow cave.

He grabbed a power up box from the last set. He shot each one at the three leading racers: Candlehead, Vanellope, and Rancis. Each one hit it's mark perfectly and he passed by them. Smirking, he drove as fast as his kart would allow and approached the finish line. The grin on his face grew as he looked back and saw Vanellope half a mile behind him.

He was only ten seconds away from the finish line when something landed on his kart. Upon closer inspection, Gloyd realized that it was a boy, barely holding on to the hood. Instinctively, Gloyd hit the brakes and whoever fell on the Kernel was launched forward. He hit the ground and rolled over the finish line. Suddenly, in the middle spot of the roster screen, there was a red in the place of a picture of a racer. Vanellope crossed the finish line next, which made Gloyd snap back to reality and drive the last ten feet of the race. Gloyd grabbed his coin and drove over to Vanellope.

"Two questions." he said. "One, who is that? And two, why is it that when he crossed the finish line, the featured racer spot turned red?"

"I don't know." Vanellope said. "I've never seen him before. But the red spot I recognize."

"What is it?" Oreanna asked, pulling up next up the two.

"It means that it's my choice to give him the spot on the roster." Vanellope answered, pointing to the unknown boy who was assumed to be unconscious. "Let's get him to the castle." Vanellope drove her kart to the unknown boy. She jumped out of her kart and, with difficulty, put him on the back.

Gloyd, remembering his hat, ran over to where he threw it. He crouched down and grasped the rim of his hat. He pulled it up and lost balance, falling over. "I'm gonna have to get used to the weight again.


	3. The Chase

The Chase

Vanellope took the mysterious stranger to the castle, Gloyd following her. Oreanna was going to go too but she decided to stay and clear things up with the other racers.

"So when do you want the Rare Candies?" Gloyd asked.

"I didn't win." Vanellope said. "You did. When do you want my nougat?"

"You won fair and square." Gloyd said.

"But you were distracted by a random stranger falling on your kart." Vanellope argued. "I just took advantage of it."

"But I'm a racer of Sugar Rush. I'm not supposed to let anything distract me. And I should be used to something hitting my kart. Besides, I had plenty of time to get across the finish line after I stopped."

"But you're used to people shooting you, not people just jumping onto your kart."

"Okay we could argue this all day." Gloyd stated. "Or we could just call it a tie and split the pot." Vanellope shrugged.

"I can do that." Vanellope said. "But you know that the other racers will want their candy back if it's a tie."

"We'll just say you won, then split it later." Vanellope considered this.

"So we're going to lie?"

"I prefer to call it 'not telling the whole truth' because in all technicality, you did win."

"Got it." After about two more minutes, they had arrived at Candy Castle. Gloyd jumped out and opened the door for Vanellope. She drove through and Gloyd followed, leaving his kart outside. Vanellope parked her kart in the spot where her throne used to be and then climbed out. Gloyd walked next to her and helped her carry the stranger.

When he was sprawled over the finish line, it was hard to see what he looked like with the black cloth covering him up. Now that they could get a closer look, the cloth was an oversized open robe that dragged across the floor. Under that, he wore a red shirt under that and black pants with a red stripe. He was also wearing silver gauntlets, one with regular fingers and the other with sharp claw-like fingertips. His head was still covered with the hood of the robe so Vanellope pulled it back. He had light brown hair but his eyes were closed. They took him to a guest room on the second floor and laid him down on the bed. Once he was on the bed, they covered him up with a blanket.

"Now what?" Gloyd asked.

"We wait until he wakes up." Vanellope answered. And so they did. They sat in two of the chairs in the room, waiting for something to happen. Gloyd would have left had he not felt guilty for hitting the stranger. After about a half hour, all fourteen of the other racers had arrived, curious about the mysterious boy.

"So did he wake up yet?" Sticky Wipplesnit asked upon arrival. Gloyd shook his head.

"He's been out cold since rolling over the finish line." he said.

"Anyone know who he is?" Oreanna asked the crowd. No one answered. "Anyone?" Still no answer.

"Maybe he's from a new game." Nougetsia Brumblestain said. This was a plausible explanation. There were always new games coming into the arcade. And with newer, more complex games, there came many extra characters. Swizzle stood over the boy, looking really carefully at him.

"He's not moving at all." he said. "Is he still alive?" Vanellope had walked to the other side of the bed and observed the black clad boy on the bed for a full minute but he didn't move an inch. Vanellope opened her mouth to speak but suddenly the boy grunted. It was the first sound he'd made.

"He's alive." Vanellope answered. "Congratulations, Gloyd. You're not a murderer." She turned her attention back to the stranger.

Experimentally, she poked his face with her finger. His eyes shot open. For an instant, they shined silver, then turned green. He jolted up. He let out a startled yelp while glancing at all the racers. Then, without warning or provocation, he shoved Vanellope away. Taken off guard, she fell backwards and was caught by Nougetsia and Candlehead. The stranger rose to his feet and kicked Rancis away from the window before jumping out of it. (Imagine this in the time span of three seconds.)

All the racers looked out the window. They saw the weird boy running into the candy cane forest.

"After him!" Vanellope shouted. She glitched out of the crowd and ran for her kart. She started it up and drove for the engine. While she passed by, Swizzle, Jubileena, and Adorabeezle grabbed onto her kart for a short ride out the front door. Luckily, all the racers left room for Vanellope's kart to pass by theirs. The racers who grabbed onto her kart let go and went to their own karts. Soon, Oreanna also drove her kart through the doors of the castle too. She drove next to Vanellope when she had enough room.

"So why are we chasing him?" Oreanna asked.

"I don't know." Vanellope answered. "I just felt something in my code telling me that I should do it. You guys can do something else if you want." Oreanna slowed down to drive next to the racer behind them, who was Taffyta, to tell her what Vanellope said. In a few seconds Oreanna moved next to Vanellope again.

"I'm coming with. This just sounds like fun." Oreanna said excitedly. She drove faster to try and catch up to the boy, who was running way faster than before, almost eighty miles an hour. All the racers who could see this were thoroughly impressed, even though everyone's karts could go almost twice as fast. The boy looked back and saw Oreanna on his left and Vanellope on his right. He grinned and stopped. Oreanna and Vanellope hit the brakes and screeched to a halt about twenty feet away. Taffyta came up next and tried to hit the stranger, who lazily moved over so that Taffyta hit Vanellope's kart, who was about to turn around. Soon All the other racers pulled up, jumping out of their karts and surrounded the stranger, who just smirked.

"I know it won't matter in about an hour when I'm gone." he said. "But just to let you know, my name is Jack Trader." Jack jumped onto a candy cane branch above him. He jumped onto another branch, then another. The racers climbed back into their karts and tried to drive after him but it was no use. The forest ahead was too thick for them to drive through.

Vanellope and Oreanna drove after him anyway. Vanellope used her glitch to drive a steady path ahead. Oreanna fazed through the trees in the way, using her ghost powers. In spite of this, they lost him when the candy cane forest transitioned into the gumdrop hills. The two drove through the hills looking for Jack for hours but never found him.

"It's useless." Oreanna said. "In the amount of time we've been here, he could have ran for the exit three times now." She stopped her kart in between a blue gumdrop and a red gumdrop next to Vanellope.

"All I wanted to do was check if he wanted to be in our roster for the day." Vanellope said.

"Really?" a voice said. Vanellope and Oreanna looked at the blue gumdrop and saw Jack wiggle out from a hole underneath it. "You want me to be a racer?"

"Actually yes." Vanellope said. "You won the Random Roster Race without paying the fee. So if you want to, I'll allow you to make a kart, take the spot in the race, get your roster picture taken, and you could be a real professional racer." Jack finally got out of the hole and jumped on top of the good of the kart. "Of course, we're going to have to run a background check on you."

"I won't guarantee an answer." Jack said. "There are a good amount of things in my past that I'm uncomfortable talking about." Vanellope, now a little suspicious, nodded in agreement.

"Whatever, licorice-head." she said. "But here's a pass to the kart bakery." she said, pulling a slip of paper out of her glove compartment. "This will entitle you to one free kart making." Jack took the slip of paper and put it in his pocket.

"Where do I make a kart at?" he asked.

"At the kart bakery." Oreanna said. "I'll give you a ride there and then I'll teach you how to drive it." She turned to Vanellope. "After we're done, should we meet you at the castle?"

Vanellope nodded and drove toward the giant pink castle. Jack jumped onto the back of Oreanna's kart, the Cream Getaway, and the two headed toward the bakery in the distance.


	4. The Ghost's Interrogation

The Ghost's Interrogation

"I have a couple questions for you." Oreanna said. They had been on the way to the kart bakery for two minutes now. "Why did you choose to be a racer so fast? You didn't even hesitate to say yes." Jack glanced at her and then looked at the road ahead.

"I'm always up to try something new." he answered. "Racing's something I've never tried. So I just chose to accept on a whim."

"Here's a better question." Oreanna said. "What game are you from?"

"I can't tell you." Jack said. Oreanna hit the brakes and her kart stopped suddenly. Jack, standing on the back of the kart, propelled forward several feet, head first to the ground. He performed a midair flip and landed safely on his feet. Turning around, he had a bored expression on his face.

"Listen carefully." Oreanna said. "Vanellope may not have learned from past mistakes but I have. The last person who walked in here after going turbo usurped the throne from her. Which is why I can't completely trust you unless you're completely honest. So tell me: what game are you from?" The bored expression Jack had was replaced by a glare.

"You listen carefully. My past is none of your concern. If I have to tell you to race here, then I'm walking out right now. All you need to know is that I have no intent to conquer anything." Oreanna glared at him before jumping out of her kart. She walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. Without warning, she stepped forward and fazed into Jack. She possessed him. Oreanna, in the body of Jack, sighed.

"There, that should make it easier." She closed her eyes and began to search Jack's mind. After possessing a few people, she realized that she could look through their memories, desires, everything that made up someone's mind. It looked a lot like the code room of one of the games. She was about to reach the desired file when she felt something pulling her away. She opened her eyes, allowing her to see the surroundings. Jack's arms, no longer in Oreanna's control, grabbed his head.

"Get out of my code!" she felt him shout, which made it clear what was happening. Jack was forcing her to end the possession.

"Calm down." Oreanna said. Jack didn't stop at all. "I was only going to look at your intentions." This seemed to slow him, but not much. "That way I can check the truth of your statement." Jack stopped completely.

"Why didn't you say so?" he said. "I would have complied." Oreanna had control again and closed Jack's eyes. After one second, she was back in the code room and went toward a small box that said "Complete History of Lies". Carefully, she opened it and found a surprisingly long list. A hand rested on her shoulder, startling her. She turned around and saw Jack. She was completely surprised, mostly because out of all the times she'd done this, she had not seen the person she was possessing in their mind.

"Not a single one of these was told in... whatever this game is called." Jack said. "And if that were a lie, it would have appeared at the top." Curiously, Oreanna looked at the list but Jack covered it up. I've told you. All you need to know is that 'I have no intent to conquer Sugar Rush.' is not at the top." Oreanna looked at it and saw that he was right. The top said something in a language that she didn't even recognize. She sighed and looked back at Jack.

"I guess we're done here. I have a couple more questions to ask you." She opened Jack's eyes and exited his body. She hopped back into her kart and waited for Jack to take his seat in the back.

"Go ahead and drive. I'll just run." Oreanna shrugged and pressed the accelerator lightly. Jack ran beside her kart and kept up pretty well.

"Here's another one. I witnessed you fall on Gloyd's kart. He was right in the middle of the road and even if you jumped you couldn't have reached him from a high enough place. How is this possible?"

"I was in the Candy Cane Forest."

"That brings me to another question. How do you know the names of all the places in the game?"

"One question at a time, please. I was hanging by my robe at the exact top of one of the trees. I don't exactly know how long I stayed there but eventually, a couple of the citizens saw me and decided to talk to me. It was a few of them that gave me the knowledge that I have now. So after a while I got bored and decided to get down and look for a place to lay low. I slipped out of my robe, then pulled it off the branch. When I looked down, I could tell I was a good hundred feet up. I decided that it couldn't hurt too much so I jumped, but I landed on my head, knocking me out. I might be a skilled acrobat but I never think about my landings." Then he had a look of sudden remembrance. "I forgot to tell you. I can do this." Jack glitched ahead about twenty feet. Oreanna was so shocked that if she wasn't subconsciously watching the road, she would have crashed. Jack looked at her. "You know, if your mouth opened any wider, you could park a kart in there." Oreanna regained her composure and kept her eyes on the road. "So I've trained myself to subconsciously do that at any random place any time I'm out cold due to a head injury. This is mostly because I fight a lot and most of my opponents want to kill me. So if I get knocked out during the fight, I'm not at their mercy. Anyway, I had teleported to the finished line and was hit by Gloyd. And the rest, as they say, is history. Now you can ask questions."

"You're a glitch?!" Oreanna shouted.

"Yep."

"How did you leave your game?" Oreanna questioned, now calmed down a little. "The surge protector's glitch shield should have kept you in no matter what."

"There is no shield, barrier, or firewall, that can keep me contained. It would be like trying to contain a bullet in a wooden box that was one inch thick."

"You have really good control of it. How long have you had it?"

"Since I was programmed, I have been able to teleport. But I learned ways to unlock the full potential. For example, have you seen this before?" He raised both hands and a bunch of pixels streamed out of the left hand, grouping together into his right hand. More and more grouped into his right hand and a little around it until it formed a katana. The blade was red and about three feet long. The handle was a simple black handle and around Jack's fingers were metal knuckles (kind of like brass knuckles attached to the sword, not sure what they're called.)

"I haven't seen it do that before." Oreanna looked at the weapon in Jack's hand. "That's a cool sword. Have you ever used it?"

"I've used it in a battle once. But I'll never fight with it again. This sword is for show, not for battle." The sword turned back into pixels and flowed back into Jack's hand.

"Why isn't it a good fighting sword?" Jack summoned the sword again, this time in his left hand and also summoned a regular katana into his right.

"My sword style involves a lot of reversing the sword." He flipped the regular katana so that the blade was closest to his pinky finger, then flipped it back. "But the knuckles on this one make it impossible to do that, so I can't use too many of my best techniques." The regular katana disappeared into a cloud of pixels. "By the way, when I do that, I call it 'glitch summon' and 'glitch dismiss'." He glitch dismissed the sword in his left hand.

"Oh." Oreanna remembered something else Jack said. "By the way, you said 'new suitable home.' Are you saying you're homeless?"

"In technicality, yes." Jack said. "Any other questions?"

"Actually, just one." Oreanna said. "You're the first person to ever be able to resist my possessing. How did you do it?"

"You see, when you possess someone, you cage their subconscious in their mind. The subconscious is never strong enough to break that cage. However, your possession does not account for my glitch. My subconscious easily got out of the cage and demanded control back. So in other words, you can't possess someone who can glitch."

"Got it, can't possess glitches."

"Now I have a question for you. Where did you get the ghost powers?"

"Long story, might bore you with the details."

"Nothing can bore me, besides the history of yarn."

"Sorry I mislead you. What I meant to say was: I don't really feel like telling it."

"How about this? You tell me how you got those powers and I'll tell you more about where I came from." Oreanna was definitely interested in this information.

"You're trying to bribe me, the vice president of Sugar Rush?" Jack nodded. "I'll think about it." She did want to know but the way that Jack defended this made her worry that the knowledge was dangerous.

"So how far until we reach this factory?"

"Jump on my kart and we'll be there in two minutes." Jack shook his head and ran faster, reaching sixty miles per hour. Oreanna sped up and passed him quickly. "Why don't you wanna ride my kart?" Jack stopped running and Oreanna's kart screeched to a halt thirty feet away.

"I'm glad we're on that subject. You see, I am not much of a kart person. I prefer to have my feet on the ground than in a kart."

"Then how did you intend to race?"

"I was going to get a kart but I can move as fast as any kart here. It seems kind of pointless."

"No you can't. If you could, then why didn't you use your full speed when trying to get away from us?" Jack shrugged.

"I couldn't reach my full speed at the time. Why that is, I'll let that be a surprise. I can outrun you guys all day long if I had the chance."

"But wouldn't you get tired?"

"I haven't gotten tired yet and I was running for about twenty minutes now. I almost never get tired."

"Either way, Vanellope won't accept you running instead of driving."

"What about a race?" Oreanna was surprised at this. "I race against everyone in this game. If I win in the top three places, I get to race on my feet. If I don't make it into the top three, I'll adhere to any rule that you guys ask of me."

"You can't possibly win."

"Then you guys should have no problem accepting this challenge."

"But I hate racing in an unfair race. I can't happily beat you unless you're in a kart." Jack smirked at this.

"What makes you think it would be unfair? I haven't showed you my full speed yet." Oreanna pondered this. Truthfully, she assumed Jack was bluffing and couldn't run too much faster. She really hated unfair competition. But even so, he was the fool who made the challenge.

"I'll run it by Vanellope. But we're running short on time so I'll drive my kart as fast I can to talk to her. In the meantime, why don't you go..." She stopped for a moment, thinking on what to say. "do something?"

"I'll look around the game for a while." Oreanna nodded and hit the accelerator, turning to alter her course for the castle. Jack looked at his surroundings and ran into town at a steady pace.


	5. Dissecting Power Ups

Dissecting Power Ups

Jack was running toward the city, thinking he should learn his way around. At the risk of being seen, he put the good of his robe on. When he reached the edge of town, he saw many interesting looking people. There were marshmallow people, gumdrop people, a couple of oreo guards here and there, a racer or two in the stores, but what really interested Jack was what he saw in the bushes near town. Gloyd was hiding there, tinkering with an odd looking machine. Jack took a closer look from a nearby tree and saw that it was a catapult loaded with a pie. Gloyd finished setting it up and dusted his hands off. He took out a tape recorder and started to talk.

"Prank-o-matic machine, type four." he began. "So far, all prank-o-matic machines have failed due to miscellaneous mistakes. However, I feel I have corrected all possible mistakes with this one. Therefore, it is ready for the field test." He clicked a button on the tape recorder to stop it and flipped a switch on the catapult. It started to make a quiet hum and a red laser popped out of the front. "Come on, turn to Rancis." Gloyd begged the machine. Jack laughed quietly, keeping Gloyd from hearing him. He found the scene somewhat humorous. The machine held still until Jack saw Rancis pass in front of the laser, then the catapult flung a pie at him. Jack snickered, hearing Rancis shout about his perfect, golden hair being ruined by an apple pie. He thought Gloyd was going to laugh too, being the mastermind of the prank, but instead he gave a disappointed sigh. The catapult returned to its original position without a pie. He hit a button on the tape recorder and recorded messages. "Test failed. The pie launched at the first racer to be touched by the laser but the catapult won't turn to the racer. Furthermore, I haven't a clue on how to make the pie respawn on the catapult." Gloyd stopped the recorder and turned the machine off.

"I could help with both." Jack said, getting Gloyd's attention.

"Hey, Jack, what's up?" Gloyd said casually.

"Not me, as you may have noticed." The two laughed at this. "You are a really good actor, acting like you didn't know me back there."

"Sorry, but you know goods imported from consoles are illegal here. If anyone finds out how I got those Rare Candies, I could be thrown in the fungeon for life."

"No need for apologies, I understand completely. Why do you think I didn't say anything to you?"

Gloyd was one of the people to see Jack hanging on the tree. He would have helped him down were it not for the fact that all the branches he could get to were double striped. Instead, Gloyd made pleasant conversations with Jack, eventually leading to Jack giving Gloyd a whole bag of Rare Candies.

"So you say you can fix the prank-o-matic?" Gloyd asked.

"Yes. Here's what you should do. First, I can tell this thing is made to turn, but that doesn't help unless you have a way to turn it. If you can attach an active sweet seeker to the front, it will automatically lock onto any racer in range. Second, respawning pie, you can leave to me. Get me a pie." Gloyd handed Jack the second pie. Jack put it into the catapult and put his hands softly on the pie. When he opened them again, they had turned silver. He moved his hands around the pie, a few streams of code rippling across it. This went on for a few minutes until Jack was satisfied.

"Are you done?" Gloyd asked. Jack's eyes turned back to green.

"Yeah." Gloyd inspected the catapult and the pie closely but couldn't find any notable difference.

"What did you do?"

"I used my glitch to reprogram the pie." Gloyd knew about the glitch already but he didn't know that it could do different things.

"I thought glitches could only teleport someone."

"They can do anything. I've met glitches that could conquer every game in the world by themselves. I am nowhere near that strong. I can only do a few things."

"Like what?"

"Well I can teleport." To demonstrate, he glitched away thirty feet and back in an instant. "I can reprogram items up close, so long as I can touch them but it takes way longer than if I was in the code room. Also it doesn't help if I can't see the code of an item."

"What do you mean?" The code of an item was almost never visible to anyone. You have to be inside the code room to see it physically. Jack closed his eyes and quickly opened them.

"A while back, I suffered a head injury that was pretty gruesome. I healed up after a while and then I got these eyes that let me see the code of anything digital. It's weird how it's still there but I'm not complaining." He blinked again and his eyes were green. "Anyway, another ability is to store an unlimited amount of objects in my code." Jack pulled a bunch of swords, knives, maces, and many other types of melee weapons out of his robe then glitch dismissed them. "Let's get back to work. All we need now is a sweet seeker."

"No problem." Gloyd reached into his kart and pulled out a power up box that had three yellow sweet seekers spinning in a circle instead of a floating question mark. "I found this secret track that wasn't added to the game a couple weeks ago. Unlike regular tracks, the power up boxes let you see the power up you get ahead of time." He threw the box at his kart and it broke, giving the kart a sweet seeker gun.

"Good, now I just need to take that gun apart and carefully tie one of the sweet seekers to the catapult with licorice rope." Jack glitch summoned a big black box and opened it. There was a variety of tools in there ranging from hammers to screwdrivers to wrenches. "I'll start taking apart the gun, you go buy some rope."

"No need, I have some of that too." Gloyd pulled some rope out of his kart and gave it to Jack, who set it to the side and pulled out two screw drivers from his tool box. He gave one to Gloyd and jumped on the good of the kart.

"Take off the cover and nothing else. I can't do anything with a piece of live ammo unless I know how to set it off, or how to do it safely. So I cannot stress it enough. Take only the cover off." Gloyd took off his helmet and jumped on the other side of the hood. He began to unscrew one of the plates covering the mechanics of the gun.

"By the way, I'm curious." Gloyd said as he loosened a screw. "You can glitch, and you have been able to the whole time. Why didn't you get down in the first place?"

"I didn't. I died and now I'm haunting you." Gloyd laughed.

"That's cool and spooky at the same time. Perfect for a Halloween themed racer like myself."

"You know, the first person I said that to, about a couple months ago, screamed and ran away. They could not handle a joke. But to answer your question, when I first got there, I was paralyzed from the waist down, don't ask why, so I just hung there until I could move my legs that way I didn't fall into the taffy swamp. I found the view so wondrous that I didn't really wanna look away when I could feel my legs."

"I know you told me not to ask but why were your legs paralyzed?"

"Okay, fine, I'll tell you." Gloyd was slightly surprised that Jack gave in so easily. "My super speed has a time limit. In about ten days, my legs will be paralyzed for one hour." The casing of the gun was finally off completely and Jack and Gloyd inspected it closely. "Could you hand me that wrench?" Gloyd went back to the tool box and grabbed the closest wrench.

"This one?" he asked, holding up the wrench in hand. Jack nodded. Gloyd jumped back up to the gun and handed the wrench to Jack, then continued to look at all the mechanisms that made up a sweet seeker gun. "I think we need to take off the barrels too. I can't even see a sweet seeker." Jack nodded and unsrewed a few bolts. The barrels of the gun slid themselves off and revealed three glowing sweet seekers held in place by clamps.

"Lift the clamps off of this one carefully and I'll catch it."

"This might not be a good idea."

"Neither is pulling pranks on every racer in Sugar Rush who even walks by. But that never stopped you before."

"True." Gloyd grabbed the clamp on the lowest sweet seekers and carefully pulled them apart. Jack caught the falling sweet seeker and walked back to the catapult. He grabbed the licorice rope and tied it around the sweet seeker so that it wouldn't fall out. When it was good and tight, he tied the ends of the rope to the catapult. Once it was done, he grabbed the sections of rope between the sweet seeker and the catapult.

"Get ready. If this goes wrong, you might be blown to bits." Before Gloyd could react, Jack tugged on the ropes, squeezing the sweet seeker and it jerked to the left and back to the right. "It's live." Gloyd pulled out the tape recorder and turned it on.

"Prank-o-matic machine, type four, design two. The bugs of design one have been theoretically fixed, thanks to my adviser, Jack Trader. This test should yield fully positive results." Gloyd flipped the switch and the machine made a small hum. "Let go of the ropes, Jack." Jack nodded and released the sweet seeker. The machine suddenly turned quickly toward Gloyd and flung a pie at him. Then it turned toward Jack and the arm of the catapult went back down and the pie regenerated. Before it could fling another pie, Jack flipped the switch. Jack looked at Gloyd, who was sitting on the ground with the pie stuck to his face.

"You okay?" he asked. Gloyd rose to his feet and then jumped up and down happily.

"It worked! It worked!" he cheered. "Now all we need to do is find a way to keep it from targeting us."

"I can take care of that. Got any wristbands or rings?" Gloyd handed over two pieces of red licorice. "These are perfect but this might take a while. Could you go pick up a pizza?"

(In Candy Castle)

"He really thinks he has a remote chance of winning?" Vanellope asked. Oreanna nodded. She had just finished telling Vanellope about the challenge Jack issued. "Is he crazy? He would be up against the three best racers in the arcade: Me, you, and Taffyta. Not to mention, we would have a home court advantage and he's slower than even Adorabeezle's kart, who is the slowest."

"He said he didn't use his real speed when we were chasing him and that he's faster than all the karts." Oreanna said. "I think he's bluffing but he wouldn't back down."

"I'll take that challenge, bet or no bet, lie or no lie." Vanellope jumped into her kart, the Candy Kart and started the engine. "Come on, let's go find him." Oreanna sat down in the Cream Getaway and drove through the castle door, which Sour Bill had just opened. They drove to the village that Jack went to and asked everyone they saw if they'd seen Jack, including many of the racers, but no one has seen him. They spotted Candlehead exiting her house and pulled up next to her.

"Hey, have you seen Jack, the guy we were chasing earlier?" Oreanna asked, not expecting results.

"Mmm... no." Candlehead answered.

"No one has." Vanellope said.

"I heard the candy citizens say they saw him hanging with Gloyd." Candlehead said.

"I thought you said you didn't know where he was." Oreanna said.

"No, I said I haven't seen him." Oreanna and Vanellope sighed simultaneously, a little annoyed.

"Candlehead, you are nice and all, but sometimes you really can be a little thick." Oreanna said. Candlehead smiled.

"I know. Life is fun that way." she said.

"You're gonna have to explain that to me later. Where are Gloyd and Jack at?" Oreanna asked.

"The teddy grahams said they were near the coffee shop on the edge of town."

"Good, we have a few hours until the arcade opens again." Vanellope was about to hit the accelerator but stopped. "By the way, there's a race in less than twenty minutes. Could you let everyone know?" Candlehead smiled and have Vanellope a thumbs-up. The president drove away, followed by the vice president.

(On the edge of town)

Vanellope and Oreanna pulled up next to the coffee shop and looked around. The whole area was deserted,not a soul to be found.

"There's no one here." Oreanna said. "You think Candlehead got the information wrong?"

"I hope not." Vanellope responded. "I already called the race. If we can't find him, he automat-" she was cut off by a flying pie hitting her in the face and fell down. Oreanna ran over to her side.

"Are you okay?" she asked. Vanellope nodded and the two looked in the direction of the pie and another one shot at Oreanna, who used her ghosting ability to let the pie gaze through her. After helping Vanellope up, they ran in the direction the pie came from.

They found Gloyd and Jack in the bush, laughing hysterically and eating pizza.

"Do you guys think this is funny?" Oreanna asked sternly. Then she saw a box of pizza and completely forgot what she was mad about. "Ooh, pizza." she took a slice and sat down

next to them. Jack pulled two pieces of licorice from his pocket.

"Here, tie these to your wrists." he said, handing Vanellope and Oreanna the licorice. They did as instructed, a littl.

"I would not mind hanging out here all day but we got a race to be at." Vanellope said.

"When was this race announced?" Gloyd asked, not recalling any scheduled night races.

"Right now. Let's go." Vanellope went to the pie flinging machine, which was still activated, to turn it off. But before she could reach it, another one shot out. Vanellope quickly glitched out to where it went while Gloyd turned off the machine. When they reached the target of the pie, they saw a clean, worried Felix and a pie covered, angry Calhoun.


	6. Who is he?

Who is he?

Calhoun wiped the pie from her face, slowly trying to calm down. Gloyd's normally rosy cheeks turned pale, along with the rest of his face. Jack, never having the soldier in front of him, stood there with a straight face. He had a hard time not laughing at the leftover frosting in Calhoun's hair.

"Something tells me that she is neither from this game or a person to take a joke." Jack whispered to Gloyd, who slowly shook his head.

"She's from a first person shooter." he whispered back. "That means she's programmed to handle all her problems with violence, and lots of it."

"Then why aren't we running away?" Gloyd shrugged. Calhoun finally spoke.

"Which one of you cavities threw this pie at me?" Calhoun asked, cocking the pistol in her hand. Vanellope pointed at Jack, who pointed at Gloyd while Oreanna pointed at Gloyd, who pointed at Jack. "I'm just gonna slap you both." Jack grabbed Gloyd's arm and began to run away, but underestimated how heavy Gloyd was and fell backwards.

"How much do you weigh?" he exclaimed.

"About a hundred pounds." Gloyd answered. "But this hat weighs as much as my kart." Gloyd took off his hat and threw it to the side before running toward his kart. Jack stood up and followed close behind. Calhoun tried running after the two but they were too fast. As soon as the duo reached the kart, Gloyd jumped in the driver's seat and Jack jumped onto the back. Calhoun took out her pistol and tried to shoot the tires but Gloyd drove away before she could get a clear shot. At the last minute, she pulled the trigger and let out a bullet, but missed.

"Damn it! They got away." Calhoun said angrily.

"Language." Felix said. "And you didn't need to shoot at them."

"I was aiming for the wheels."

"Good thing you missed." Oreanna said. "They're both due to race in ten minutes. If you hit the wheel, Gloyd won't be able to race." She turned to the hat Gloyd left behind. "Help me lift this onto my kart." She tried to pick it up but it was too heavy. Felix, Calhoun, and Vanellope helped and they managed to put it on the back of Oreanna's kart. After it was loaded Felix and Calhoun got on the hover board while Vanellope and Oreanna sat in their karts. They started their engines but before they drove, Oreanna saw Vanellope giving her a look of slight disapproval. "What?"

"We're gonna have to have a talk after the race." Vanellope said before accelerating toward the starting line. Oreanna followed after shortly.

(At the starting line)

Gloyd and Jack pulled up to the starting line, remembering the race they were supposed to be at. Most of the other racers were there, with the exceptions of Vanellope, Oreanna, Taffyta, Citrusella, Nougetsia, and Jubileena. When Gloyd came to a complete stop, Jack stepped off of the Kernel.

"Are you sure that you can keep up with us?" Gloyd asked him. "I've seen you run and frankly, you can't even match half my speed when I have my hat." Jack grinned.

"That's because I haven't taken off my weights yet." he said and sat down. He pulled his pant legs up revealing a strip of metal bars wrapped around each leg. He took off his shoes and pulled the weights off over his feet. After pulled his pant legs down and put his shoes back on, he picked up the weights and left them on the side of the road. "Those together added up to half my weight. I can keep up with your karts now."

"If you say so." Gloyd said, doubtful. "By the way, hand me your wristband." Jack said, taking off the licorice strand wrapped around his wrist. "I don't exactly condone cheating and these things divert the projectiles in this game. Gloyd nodded and handed him a licorice strand. After a minute or two, Vanellope and Oreanna pulled up to the starting line. "Where have you two been?" Gloyd asked. Oreanna jumped out of her kart and walked over.

"Dragging tR rE tR your hat back over here." Oreanna said. "Now go pick it up and put it on." Gloyd shrugged and jumped out of his kart. He walked over to Oreanna's kart and picked up his hat. He walked back to his kart but before he could get in, Calhoun flew overhead and jumped down.

Gloyd prepared to run away but Calhoun slapped him before he had a chance. He fell backwards into the side of his kart. Jack, a few feet away, stood his ground when Calhoun approached him. She raised her hand to slap him and Jack continued holding still. After a moment of waiting for a reaction of any kind, Calhoun finally slapped him. He was propelled backwards about ten feet. Slowly, he stood back up.

"So first you graze me with a bullet then you track me down and slap me." Jack commented.

"I didn't touch you with that shot." Calhoun said. "I missed the kart completely." Jack took off his jacket and pulled off his shirt, keeping his gauntlets on, revealing a slightly bleeding scrape on his right shoulder.

"That reminds me, anyone have any ointment?" Jack asked. Felix jumped down and pulled out his hammer.

"I can fix it." he said. He moved to tap Jack with his hammer but Jack put a hand up to stop him. "Don't worry, it'll-" Jack cut him off.

"I know what it'll do. I just want the scar to be there. If that touches it, it'll be like the cut was never there." That was when everyone noticed the numerous scars all across his torso. Some were small, some we're large, some were on his back, and some were on his chest. "Call it a bad way to remember things, but each one of these holds a memory or lesson of some sort."

"That is a bad way to remember things." Candlehead said, walking up to them.

"It's not like I inflict them myself." Jack said, putting his shirt and jacket back on. "The scars I got from fighting remind me of what not to do. Like one of them remind me not to take on ten master swordsman with nothing but a pocket knife."

"You didn't know that already?" Swizzle asked. Jack shrugged.

"I have no common sense and way too much courage, alright?" Jack said. "No more questions. I just want to win this race as fast as possible."

"Just one thing." Adorabeezle said. "Ten master swordsman, and you walked away so easily?"

"It is a long story why, but I had to get through them. So I just ran through, blocking any blade that came at me, and then when I passed them, I ran as fast as I could but they all threw their swords at me and one impaled my arm." A lot of the racers and Calhoun looked like they didn't believe him. Felix, however, just rubbed his arm, imagining how much that would hurt. "But like I said, I'm just going to win this race. Then, if you can find me, I'll answer questions." He walked away, trying to keep his distance from the others. It proved ineffective when more than one racer followed him to the other side of the road. He sighed and leaned on Adorabeezle's kart. Vanellope just ran back to her kart and called over Felix and Calhoun.

"Where's Ralph?" she asked. "You guys usually aren't here without him."

"He and Bowser are helping Eggman with some heavy machinery." Felix said. "So he asked us to come over and check on you, see how you're doing."

"I'm fine." Vanellope said, sounding happy. "So what if I can't leave the game anymore? It just gives me more time to work on my racing."

"Why can't you leave the game?" Jack asked, nearby.

"Because I have a glitch and glitches can't leave their game." Vanellope said, sounding a little sadder. Jack nodded, understanding. He walked away to the other side of the road, trying to get away from the racers that are still following him.

"So who's the newbie?" Calhoun asked.

"His name is Jack Trader." Oreanna said, her kart being next to Vanellope's. "He kind of ended up on the roster by mistake. He's not from this game and no one knows what game he's from. He refuses to tell us anything about him."

"So how do you know he's not going turbo?" Calhoun asked.

"We don't." Vanellope answered. "But I'm not making the same mistake with him as I did with Turbo. I-" She was cut off by some shouting next to the bleachers full of candy citizens. "Will you guys just stop following me?" Jack almost yelled. Most of the racers dispersed back to their own karts, leaving Candlehead.

"But Taffyta's not here." she said. "If she doesn't lead me, who will?"

"Why do you need someone to follow?" Jack asked. "Can't you just be more autonomous?" Candlehead looked confused. "It means making decisions for yourself."

"I wish I could but I'm not smart enough." Candlehead said. "I make bad decisions."

"But that's how you learn. You make a wrong choice, experience it, then don't make that wrong choice again." Candlehead looked doubtful. "How about this? You're making your choice to decide who your leader is. That's your start." Candlehead smiled and nodded before skipping away cheerfully. Vanellope looked back to Calhoun.

"That's bound to start a war." Vanellope commented.

"No kidding." Oreanna agreed. Felix was confused. He didn't know too many of the racers or any of their affiliations toward each other, only that they bullied Vanellope in the past but have since reformed. Calhoun just waved it off, not really caring.

Soon the remaining racers arrived and everyone lined up in their starting position. Felix and Calhoun went to the stands and waited for the race to start. Jack took a place between Minty and Crumbelina. Calhoun looked at Jack's discarded weights and tried to pick them up, but they were much heavier than they looked. One of them felt like they weighed up to fifty pounds. Soon, however, the feeling of the weight went down to around ten pounds.

"Magic weights." she observed. "These are illegal. They're from a console." She looked at Felix, who looked at her expecting her to go on. "He's not from the arcade."


End file.
